Soulchess 1.22e (contact: LaoshRa@Northrend; www.clancbs.com)
NOW WORKING WITH WC3 1.24!
Genre:
A mix between turn based strategy game, arena battles and other miscellaneous possibilities (it&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#8217;s de facto NOT like normal chess). Consider the game to last about one hour if played with 4 players.

Main Features:
Unique game play.
Long lasting fun due to 8 completely different races.
8 different arenas to fight in.
A tutorial and a detailed info section (F9) to understand the rules.
A well thought-out system for collecting Soulpoints.
Customized units with changed attack/armor types, a LOT of different level 1/2/3 abilities and Field Attacks.
Board Abilities.
Global spells with extravagant cinematics.
Certain changes to prevent the players from &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#8220;hiding&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#8221; at their starting positions.
Various just-for-fun extras, including music change, renaming, retinting, random taunts and a third-person-camera.
Player 1 (Red) can easily change the terrain of the board.
Playerlevel (PL) with -save / -load for additional privileges.

Players:
1-4, they can pick out of 8 completely different races.
1: To get a first impression. Creeps will spawn but they won&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;t move at all.
2: Works. Not recommended though &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#8211; some races have big advantages here.
3: Big disadvantage for the player in the middle.
4: That&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;s the way it&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;s meant to be played.
All games are FFA. If you want to play 2on2, talk with the other players before you start.

Controls:
Select one of your own units during your turn to let circles appear on the ground. The gray ones are blocked, green ones to move, red ones to attack an enemy or to use a Field Attack. Selecting your king or pressing ESC during your turn will show up a menu for different actions.
The unit&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#8217;s hotkeys are: Q W E and R (depending on the position of the abilities).

General info / Progress of the game:
The board is shaped like a cross (so the forces don&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;t overlap in the corners), there are 4 healing fields in the middle. Each player has 10 units and loses if his king-type unit dies. The players take turns to move their units.
During your turn you can EITHER
-Move a unit
-Attack a unit (Arena)
-Attack a unit (Field Attack)
-Use a Board Ability
-Skip your own turn
-Increase the level of one of your units by paying 10 Soulpoints
-Cast your race specific Soulpower
or
-Do unrelated stuff until the turn time runs out (default: 1:30 minutes)

-Attack a unit (Arena)
Instead of killing a unit directly an arena fight is triggered (both units become unpaused and transported to a random arena). The attacker has +25% attackspeed and +10% movementspeed. The winning unit will reach a higher level (maximum is level 3) and gather 3 Soulpoints; the loser will acquire 5 Soulpoints.

-Attack a unit (Field Attack)
Some units (averagely 2 per race) have Field Attacks. Instead of triggering an arena fight the attacker will attack once or cast a single spell to hurt / weaken the victim.

-Use a Board Ability (Requires PL2)
Similar to Field Attacks, Board Abilities end your turn after usage. However, they don&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;t require a hostile target like Field Attacks do.
All Soldier-types have &amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;Soul Release&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;:
Sets the soul of this unit free: it gains 20% bonusdamage, +1 armor and instantly restores 2 manapoints. The effect lasts for the duration of the next battle of this unit. However, you won&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;t gain any Soulpoints from this battle. Using this ability multiple times won&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;t make the bonuses stack, only the manarestoration does.
All Archer-types have &amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;Fortify&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;:
Attackers won&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;t have any Attacker&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;s Advantage (attack&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;movespeed bonus) against it. Lasts until the unit uses a Field Attack, attacks another unit or until it moves onto another field.
All Caster-types have &amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;Meditate&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;:
Restores 1 Manapoint to this and all nearby allied units (covers 9 fields).

-Levelup / Soulpower
As mentioned before you gather Soulpoints by fighting. But you also gather Soulpoints by occupying the king fields (+1 Soulpoint per round) and the healing fields in the middle (+2 Soulpoints per round). Those Soulpoints can be spend to increase the level of a unit for 10 Soulpoints (neither a king nor Aznereth) or to cast the race-specific Soulpower. Both options can be found in the menu which shows up if you select your king or press ESC.
Soulpowers are extremely powerful and may change the tide of the battle. Some drain all Soulpoints beoming more effective with each point, others have a static cost.

NEW: Playerlevel (PL)
You gain play Playerlevel points for arena battles and eventually gain a higher Playerlevel (PL):

Before leaving, you should always type &amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;-save&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; to get a password which contains your points.

When starting a new game, you can &amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;-load XYZ&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; whereas XYZ is your code. You can only load before all players have picked their races and you can only load one code per game.

Those Playerlevel points gained in arena battles depend on many factors: many players, a tough battle, an opponent with high PL... those things will increase the amount of points significantly. You gain most by draws, and a lot by winning the battle. Losing it hardly gives you any points.
Winning a game also adds some points, depending on the duration of the game. Even if you didn&amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;t win, staying until the end of the game also adds a small amount of points.

I just noticed the attachment limit here is 5 mb so i cannot upload the map here (even as 7z). please use THIS direct download link in the meantime.

I've already played this game many many times so I can already review it for you.

An EXTREMELY good game. Unique, fun, but you still need to tweak a few things for balancing.
-As I recall, that Dreadlord hero revives after you kill him. I faced him with my main hero once, and was like 2 levels higher than him, and he still won. Need to make him weaker :/
Thats....about it. Beautiful map, 9/10 good job!

as for the vampire: he can only revive ONCE per game. and its his level 3 ability (lvl3 is max so u can hardly have been 2 levels higher ^^) and after the fight he ressurects in he is cut down to 1% hp and 0% mana. the fact that he starts with the lowest maxhp balances this i think. just dont let him level ^^

aznereth costs 10 more soulpoints each time u summon him again. in addition u have to remember that he requires a sacrifice to appear. also he can hardly be healed on the soulfields. the main idea behind the black horde in total is that they have weak units but a strong king and a strong soulpower (aznereth).

thx for feedback, i understand ur complainings but i've also came across a lot of ppl saying that alucard (the raising vampire) is too weak and that the black horde is too weak. so i can only follow my own experiences which say its balanced as it is. remember that you cannot compare single unit types of different races, its about how the race acts in total: e.g. blood orcs have strong units but no field attacks at all.

All i can say from my own experience is that unless all 3 other players gangbang me when or before i summon Aznereth, i win, i've regulary been able to summon Azzy 3 or 4 times in a single game, using him basically as a battering ram to suicide KO each king. Getting the number of required soulpoints isn't hard once you've got Az, because you can use him to dominate the middle and often get 3 or 4 points without anyone else being able to stop him.

I tried and luckilly we didn't use aznereth. The game was fun but the arena needs fixing. Most of the times the guy with more hit points will win. And for most of the spells there is no way at all to dodge their missiles. Also goblins that explode on dead should show a warning before doing the damage. It is a good newb killer cause there is no way you could now that goblins explode on dead.

Also don't call the turtles submarines. In wc2 they were called sea turtles. It would be cool if you get an attachment or something that makes the turtles look like wc2.

Anyways I found something annoying, when you start the map you get the commands like -ar and when the cinematic starts you can't use those modes, there is not enough time to type it especially if there are laggers in the game so perhaps improve it, and those goblin race (forgot name but they have all those goblins units) is way too weak and can be owned with any race and seriously for 40 damage you make the field attack random? which I played a map and my enemy got the damage instead of me (hes that race) every time he does it, one time he did it and it worked for 40 damage?!

Goblins own if you use them right, their suicide ability at level 3 allows you to pull draws and their soulpower is basically an instant win if their king gets too close to yours.

All of the races are good, but you need to use different play styles for each one, the only prob i see is that if you're up against the Horde and they summon Azzy, they can them dominate the middle and rapidly build up enough SP to summon him again. He's also a real biatch to kill.

To use the commands, type them before you type -skip, you've got about 10 - 15 seconds at the start, which is plenty.

well i dont want single units (except kings / aznereth) to have a high chance of wiping out 2 units in a direct row. its not of much use to attack enemy units which are covered (unless u desperately need more sp). instead u slay them at the right time when the enemy cant counter and place ur hurt unit on a healing field. if thats not possible retreat it to slowly profit from the hp regen per round which applies only for lvl2 and 3.
however, if u consider the customised armor and attack types and place some levelups in a good way u should be able to win with an injured unit. happened countless times before :)

Quote:

Also goblins that explode on dead should show a warning before doing the damage

i dont quite get the point of that... no matter if u know it or not: it doesnt change the outcome of the battle. its also obvious that a level3 unit is somehow stronger than its level2 form...

Quote:

Also don't call the turtles submarines. In wc2 they were called sea turtles

ur right about this, i'll rename them for next version :) as for attachment i'll c what i can do but i wont put much effort in it.

if u tent not to have enough time at start to enter modes: simply pause the game. also u should be able to enter the commands while the other players lag. i dont want to extend the initial time any further the whole game time is already long enough.

the goblin field attack might be not as good as other field attacks. but you dont HAVE to use it :P i recommend only to use it after placing the cocktail bombers on a healing field. btw the damage is actually hp loss: it cant be reduced by armor / resistances.
-> i think i'll buff it up for 50 instead of 40.

in general i understand your complainings about balance, but its very hard to do anything about it without being spammed by "imba"-cries from other ppl. after all i get those in all directions: too weak AND too strong for the same race at the same day... well i dont want to give up the unique advantages and disadvantages of the different races but im trying my best to slowly improve the general balance. radical changes might mess it up quite fast though.
anyway, i guess i'll weaken aznereth (once again ._.) as nobody ever complains about him being too weak. but remember: the outcome counts! if u summon aznereth ur usually focused by 3 other players ruining ur chance to win...

Yes, they are supposed to be stronger, but how would you know that they can harm you even after you kill them? When it is the first time you play against goblins you don't really see it coming . That seriously turned the tide of that match.

Quote:

Well Approve it then? :)

It has my approval. it needs 2 more staff guys to do the same before it goes to the maps section

yes, you cannot know about it. but that applies for ALL abilities. unless you experienced it before you never know what ur dealing with... but i think i get ur point now, its the venomcounters which annoyed u? because at level3 they have both, the lvl2 damage-after-death and the lvl3 poison-after-death.
anyway i might add something to f9 which lists all suicide / after-death abilities. válins fart / the uranium powercore are actually nothing compared to alucards lvl3 ^^